2019/2020 Colonies/Expansions/Charters/Closures

[mlanderson]

Originally Posted by LaneSig

Delta Phi Epsilon has closed their chapter at Georgia Southern University.

Racism. Pure and simple.

[carnation]

??? The chapter was closed due to low numbers. I have 3 children there.

[chi-o_cat]

Originally Posted by mlanderson

Racism. Pure and simple.

Are you implying that PNMs avoided this chapter due to its diversity? if so, that's a shame. Their loss, I guess.

[shadokat]

so sad for the women at Georgia Southern. Especially with that beautiful house they built. Hopefully they'll get to come back at some point.

[carnation]

Originally Posted by chi-o_cat

Are you implying that PNMs avoided this chapter due to its diversity? if so, that's a shame. Their loss, I guess.

No,PNMs avoided it because it was the newest and by the time another group came on, everyone was used to avoiding DPhiE. They were hardly diverse at all when they opened.

[mlanderson]

Originally Posted by chi-o_cat

Are you implying that PNMs avoided this chapter due to its diversity? if so, that's a shame. Their loss, I guess.

💯 the chapter was full of beautiful diverse women and but many PNMs would not go there because of the campus’s perception. The local Panhellenic did not do much to help break that culture. The house was beautiful but sadly it will go to someone else. This makes me so angry. There is no shortage of people who wanted to join there.

[ASTalumna06]

Originally Posted by PittDZ

i believe that I read that Johnson & Wales have closed these campuses totally. I think that they still have the main campus in Providence open, as well as the one in Charlotte.

This is what clemsongirl's post and article say - that the campuses have closed entirely

I know there were chapters of AST on both, although I don't know if they both closed at the same time the campuses closed. One might have been a short time prior due to another reason, but don't hold me to that.

[carnation]

Originally Posted by mlanderson

💯 the chapter was full of beautiful diverse women and but many PNMs would not go there because of the campus’s perception. The local Panhellenic did not do much to help break that culture. The house was beautiful but sadly it will go to someone else. This makes me so angry. There is no shortage of people who wanted to join there.

Six of my kids and many more of their friends have gone there or graduated from there. The problem was no different from that of the so-called "most struggling" sororities on many campuses. PNMs didn't avoid them because they had women of color; several sororities there do. They avoided them because they felt their women were the ones that no one else would take--the ones with low GPAs, the awkward ones, the very overweight ones, the "unusual" ones. Plus it didn't help that a lot of DPhiEs dropped and spread it all around about how they had had a subpar experience. A whole lot.

Now note that this isn't my judgement; I have watched this unfold for years and alums of various groups in the state have talked about the problems. I feel that the final nail in the coffin was when Panhellenic on campus called a new sorority to colonize (I hear they did it without publicizing it to other groups) right in the middle of DPhiE's troubles.

But to blame it on racism--no. We Greeks in Georgia have heard about this for many years.

[MSKKG]

Originally Posted by mlanderson

💯 the chapter was full of beautiful diverse women and but many PNMs would not go there because of the campus’s perception. The local Panhellenic did not do much to help break that culture. The house was beautiful but sadly it will go to someone else. This makes me so angry. There is no shortage of people who wanted to join there.

Your post confused me. If there were many PNMs who CHOSE not to return because of campus perception, then that's on the PNMs. If there were no shortage of people who wanted to join, then the chapter wouldn't have had to close because of low numbers.

[carnation]

Originally Posted by MSKKG

Your post confused me. If there were many PNMs who CHOSE not to return because of campus perception, then that's on the PNMs. If there were no shortage of people who wanted to join, then the chapter wouldn't have had to close because of low numbers.

Exactly.

[thetalady]

Originally Posted by mlanderson

There is no shortage of people who wanted to join there.

What do you mean?? If there is a chapter that is not meeting quota on a regular basis, then it is the better option for it to close. If there is no shortage of people wanting to join the chapter, they will meet quota. If there are many women who want to be Greek, but choose not to join a specific chapter then another chapter will be invited to fill that demand. Simple.

[AZTheta]

^^^ what they said. Your post is contradicting itself. Care to explain? ETA: mlanderson is who I'm asking, not thetalady/carnation/MSKKG

[mlanderson]

The perception is that they were the chapter who takes blacks. Only a campus culture will change that. A PNM will make a decision based on perception.

Clutch your pearls. I said what I said.

[carnation]

There are several chapters at Southern with black women, as well as other women of color. It is not a big deal. DPhiE had issues that made PNMs not want them (not including members' races).

And if you look at their past recruitments, there were not unlimited women who wanted them. There weren't many women at all. I think most of their members came from COB.

When you market yourself as the un-sorority, you will turn off a lot of Southerners.

[SWTXBelle]

If there is literally no shortage of women who want to join, then a chapter won't be caught in the death spiral of not enough members. Being the newest chapter wouldn't help.

I know of Carnation's involvement in Georgia alumnae panhellenics and Georgia Southern specifically, so I'm going to go with her analysis, no pearl clutching needed.